FLINT, MI – When Carriage Town Auto and Truck Repair threatened to close this summer, the surrounding community wasn't about to let another business slide into blight.

Kettering University local businesses and the University Avenue Corridor
Coalition made sure the shop became part of a snowballing effort to revive the University Avenue corridor around
Kettering University.

The repair shop has been on
University Avenue for more than 25 years. Just like many businesses, it has gone through some
rough times. The economy took its toll on the business and in August, owner
Paul Ritzert died.

The family questioned what to do next. Should they sell it?

Family members approached Kettering University, only a block away from the shop, to see if the university would want to buy it.

Where
university officials were not interesting in purchasing the business, they also
did not want to see it fail.

"We encouraged them to stay in business," said Jack Stock, director
of external relations at Kettering and member of the University Avenue Corridor
Coalition. "There's a new energy there. I applaud them, because they could have
just sold it and gone away."

Kettering faculty, staff, students and Stock himself have
used the repair shop over the years. Kettering officials send some of
their fleet of vehicles there when necessary.

Mike Ritzert, nephew of Paul Ritzert, took over the business
with co-owner Jimmy Bass after he decided to keep the business going instead of
selling it.

Ritzert has a full-time job and is going school for
technological science, so the business is not a necessity for him. But he
realized that keeping it up and running would be the best decision for the community and the shop's customers.

With that came a change in appearance for the
auto repair shop and and a desire of its owners to improve the place. The
community, Kettering and the University Avenue Corridor Coalition gave
them the momentum they needed.

"They've been excellent," Ritzert said, adding that Stock and others are constantly stopping by and seeing how they can help. "I was happy
they didn't want to force us out."

But it's more than that blight fight, Stock said. It's about stabilizing
the community and keeping businesses open and viable.

"The word vitality means life. If it's vital, if it's
living, then it's contagious and it has energy. An ongoing business has ongoing
energy," Stock said. "It's another business that we can say is viable and doing
well. Abandoned would have been much worse."

In the spring, a group of volunteers scraped
and painted two walls of Carriage Town Auto and Truck
Repair that face the street at 1523 University Ave. Recently, they power-washed a third wall and helped clear some brush.

Employees have stepped up to clean the parking lots
and the nearby sidewalks, among other improvements. Recently, the shop's sign has been
repainted.

"That's just kind of a cool example there," said Dallas
Gatlin, executive director of Carriage Town Ministries and a member of the
University Avenue Corridor Coalition. "(The work done by the community)
inspired the people taking over there to paint their own sign."

Ritzert said it was a hard time when his uncle died,
but many regular customers keep coming back.

Clarence Wilson, 52, of Flint has been a customer of
Carriage Town Auto and Truck Repair for more than 15 years because of the
honest work done there by Paul Ritzert and the staff there now, he said.

He's glad to see the shop didn't close.

"That would have been a sad thing," Wilson said, adding that
the improvements are great for the area. "The whole city
needs to be revitalized."

Little changes and improvements lead to more changes and
positive actions, Gatlin said. And that is what the coalition is all about -- continual movement forward.

"There's no legal charter ... except for neighbors agreeing
it's important to work together and get to know each other. (Coalition members)
are sustained because there is energy. People see that things are being done
and that motivates others," Gatlin said.

Ripple effect of
change

Across the street from the auto repair shop is the Children's
Museum and just down the street is Einstein Bros. Bagels and Kettering's
campus. There needs to be a collaboration for all of them to be successful, Gatlin said.

Without the help of the community, changes would have been
much slower, Bass said. With the area seeing continuing growth and development,
it's nice to be part of the community, he said.

A community effort changed a former blighted property on the corner of University Avenue and Grand Traverse Street into University Square, a park for public use, as seen Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013 in Flint.Jake May | MLive.com

"It looked pretty rough out there for a while," Bass said. "They
did a lot with this place."

And just as the corridor continues to evolve, Bass and
Ritzert want to do the same with the shop. Local students might even paint
boards to cover spots where windows are broken and they will continue from
there.

Key players, including those from the University Avenue
Corridor Coalition, want to see more positive change in the area. From the corridor to the downtown
to more places in the city, improvements can be contagious, Gatlin said.

The University Square is another example of a group effort resulting in a change for the better.

That project at University Avenue and Grand Traverse Street took a blighted, old supermarket and turned it
into a park. Grass was added and sidewalks were installed. Carriage Town Ministries led the charge to raise funds but others joined the effort to make it a
reality, Gatlin said.

They needed benches and trash cans. Kettering officials were
already buying some for their campus and they purchased more for the park.

"There are 365 days in the year and if you use all of them,
well, you end up looking back at the year and say, 'Wow, we did all that?' That's
what makes healthy neighborhoods," Gatlin said. "Neighbors, if they do
something every day, that can make a huge difference with that commitment. We
don't have to be blighted. You see a little area doing that and it sparks curiosity
and interest.

"Two or three years down the road, and you are going to have
to look really hard to find blighted properties."